TAE Approves of this Post

"Senate Approves its Spaceflight Plan," the headline reads. Of course they do.

TAE, however, doesn't. My hard line stance towards ending manned spaceflight for the foreseeable future has really been pushed to the limits lately, so much so that I've backed down about posting about it. After President Obama outlined his plan for NASA and American Manned Spaceflight, I sat back in jaded disillusion as astronauts and Florida Senators alike lined up and wrote letters and submitted testimonies demanding America remain in astral mediocrity as long as possible. "We must remain the dominant nation in space" the argument went, not acknowledging in the slightest that we have not had a major technical breakthrough in space in 50 years, or that the first letter in ISS stands for "International" or that while other nations have entered into orbit, the NASA has become largely a Florida Economic Stimulus Package. They argued that we cannot end the shuttle missions until we have a new method by which to send astronauts to the ISS or elsewhere, but they provided no alternatives, other than a large, dangerous, and expensive "Heavy Lift Rocket." And despite successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket, virtually guaranteeing that private, AMERICAN orbital vehicles are on the cusp of realization, the bureaucratic blowhards in the Senate and astronauts who wax poetic like veterans of some galactic conflict cannot accept that the interests of America are better served in other places than in an orbital junkyard.

And so, the Senate's "compromise" unsurprisingly sounds to me like Ben Nelson called in a few favors so he doesn't have to worry about reelection. It sounds like the same arguments that people make to continue the Bush Tax Cuts...we must not end this now, but later when we're not in office to face the blowback, then end it.

I have alluded to this before, and I feel like rehashing it now. We must abolish NASA. America needs to immediately and succinctly pull out of space, the same way many on both sides of the aisle urge the quickest possible withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. American lives are put in extreme jeopardy, and little is gained, by the incredibly risky and expensive missions in this dangerous wasteland. There are no friendlies in space to aid, there is no economy or government to help rebuild. There are no radical insurgents to find and remove. There is little, if any, breakthrough science left to be learned. The ISS is an expensive (and poorly built) experiment in failed Western imperialism and we are better to cut our ties and leave now.
Some would argue that leaving Iraq now would open it up for Iranian influence. These arguments might well be valid. Similarly, the same argument could be made that American departure from space would only make it easier for "evil" nations to take up residence there.

And what, TAE asks, are these vile interlopers going to do in space that we must prevent? Fill the void with missiles, pointed at the U.S.? They don't have to go to space to do that. Fill the skies with satellites, pointed at us? They can already do that.
TAE thinks the only real reason a nation would want to get humans into space is so they can spend ridiculous amounts of revenue. The Chinese might send men to the Moon? How much will that cost them? Honestly, if Apollo cost the U.S. around $150 billion in today's dollars...how much would it cost the Chinese? They don't exactly have a track record of tight budgeting of mega-projects.

Other than the single, highly-implausible scenario where another nation might launch orbital satellites containing nuclear weapons whose sole purpose was to threaten upper-atmospheric detonation to create an electromagnetic pulse that would send America back to the bronze age...other than that single scenario...I can think of not one other reason why we need to "maintain" American dominance in space. Not one. And no one has given me any. Certainly not Ben Nelson or Neil Armstrong.

TAE thinks the 18.7 billion dollars or so being spent annually on NASA would be much better spent on educating America's youth. Simply put, we must get out of space and educate some kids who might come up with a more plausible way of getting us there. Why not kill NASA and turn the entire budget into 750,000 full ride college scholarships for science and engineering students?
Why not? The status quo, that's why.


_